The Book of Joel is part of the Jewish Tanakh, and also the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Joel is part of a group of twelve prophetic books known as the Minor Prophets or simply as The Twelve; the distinction ‘minor’ indicates the short length of the text in relation to the larger prophetic texts known as the “Major Prophets”.

Yoel Hoffmann was born to a Jewish-Austrian family who came to pre-state Israel when Hoffman was a year old. He is a professor of Japanese poetry, Buddhism and philosophy at Haifa University. He spent two years in a Buddhist monastery, and has translated Japanese poetry. Hoffman received the Bialik Prize (2002) and the Prime Minister`s Prize (2007). With his first collection of stories, The Book of Joseph (1988), Hoffman began his lyrical, experimental literary journey. But only with Bernhardt (1989) and Christ of Fishes (1991) did his mature creative voice emerge.

Yoel ben Petuel – the second in the traditional listing by CHAZAL of the group of Prophets known as the “Trei-Asar,” the “Twelve”. Yoel prophesied that Israel would be punished by four different species of locusts, that would utterly devastate the Land.